The
statement[3] made by sixty-six Moscow industrialists—who, according to
the calculations of a certain Moscow newspaper, represent capital amounting
to five hundred million rubles—has given rise to a number of extremely
valuable and characteristic articles in various newspapers. In addition to
casting an uncommonly glaring light on the present political situation,
these articles furnish interesting material on many fundamental questions
of principle relating to the entire evolution in twentieth-century Russia.

Here is Mr. Menshikov of Novoye Vremya, setting forth the
views of the Right parties and of the government:

“How is it that all these Ryabushinskys, Morozovs, et al., fail to
understand that should there be a revolution they will all hang or, at
best, become paupers?”

Mr. Menshikov says (Novoye Vremya, No. 12549) that he quotes
“these vigorous words” “from the letter of a student of a very
revolutionary institute”. And to this Mr. Menshikov adds his own
observations:

“Despite the grim warning of the year 1905, the upper classes of
Russia, including the merchant class, are extremely hazy about the
impending catastrophe.... Yes, Messrs. Ryabushinsky, Morozov, and all
others like you! Despite the fact that you are flirting with the
revolution, and despite all the testimonials of liberalism which you are
hastening to earn, it is you who are going to be the first victims of the
revolution now brewing. You will be the first to hang, not for any crimes
you may have committed, but for something which you consider a virtue,
merely for possessing those five hundred million rubles you brag so much
about.... The liberal bourgeoisie, with the middle sections
of the nobility, the civil service, and the merchant class together with
their titles, ranks and capital are heedlessly heading towards the brink of
the revolutionary precipice. If the liberal instigators of revolution live
to see the day at last when they are dragged to the gallows, let them then
recall their indulgent treatment by the old state power, how considerately
it listened to them, how it humoured them, and how few were the claims it
made upon their empty heads. On that very day, which will be a black day
for them, let them compare the blessings of the radical regime with the
old, patriarchal order.”

That is what the unofficially semi-official organ of the government
wrote on February 17—the very same day that Rossiya, the
officially semi-official organ of the government, was doing its utmost to
prove, with the assistance of Golos
Moskvy,[4] that the “escapade” of the sixty-six “cannot be
considered as expressing the opinion of the Moscow merchants”.
“The Congress of the Nobility,” Rossiya says, “is an
organisation; whereas the sixty-six merchants who say that they acted as
private individuals are not an organisation.”

It is embarrassing to have two semi-official organs! One refutes the
other. One is trying to prove that the “escapade” of the sixty-six cannot
be regarded as the expression of the opinion even of the Moscow merchants
alone. At the same time the other is trying to prove that the “escapade”
is of much wider significance, since it expresses the opinion, not only of
the Moscow merchants, and of the merchant class, but of the whole of
Russia’s liberal bourgeoisie in general. On behalf of “the old
state power”, Mr. Menshikov has undertaken to caution this liberal
bourgeoisie: it’s your interests we have at heart!

There is probably not a single country in Europe in which this call
“not to instigate” addressed to the liberal bourgeoisie by the “old
state power”, the nobility and the reactionary publicists, did not resound
hundreds of times in the course of the nineteenth century.... And never
were these calls of any avail, even though the “liberal bourgeoisie”,
far from wanting to “instigate”, fought against the
“instigators” with the same energy and sincerity with which the sixty-six
merchants condemn strikes. Both condemnations and calls are powerless when
all the conditions of social life
make one class or another feel that the situation is intolerable, and
compel it to voice its feeling. Mr. Menshikov correctly expresses the
interests and the point of view of the government and the nobility when he
tries to frighten the liberal bourgeoisie with revolution and accuses it of
being frivolous. The sixty-six merchants correctly express the interests
and the point of view of the liberal bourgeoisie when they accuse the
government and condemn the “strikers”. But these mutual accusations are
only a sure symptom testifying to serious deficiencies in the mechanism”,
to the fact that, despite all the willingness of “the old state power” to
satisfy the bourgeoisie, to meet it half-way and to reserve for it a very
influential place in the Duma, and despite the very strong and sincere
desire on the part of the bourgeoisie to settle down, establish good
relations, come to terms and adjust itself, despite all this, the
“adjustment” does not make any headway! This is the substance of the
matter, this is the background; the mutual accusations are nothing but
trimmings.

Mr. Gromoboi, writing in Golos Moskvy, addresses “a necessary
warning” to “the government” (Golos Moskvy, No. 38, of
February 17, in an article entitled “A Necessary Warning”). “No displays
of ‘firm’ rule,” he writes, “no volitional impulses will give the country
peace unless they go hand in hand with reforms which are long overdue.”
(Mr. Gromoboi is not very literate in his writings, but the meaning of his
words is nevertheless quite clear.) “And the unrest caused by the
protracted crisis cannot be given as a force majeure reason for
not honouring promissory notes.” (This is an awkward comparison,
Mr. Publicist of the Octobrist merchants. In the first place, the notes
happen to be unsigned; secondly, even if they were signed, where is the
commercial court to which you could appeal and where is the sheriff, etc.,
who would enforce the judgement? Think it over, Mr. Gromoboi—you will see
that not only the Octobrists, but the Cadets too, are a party of spurious
promissory notes in politics.) “In such a case unrest will only increase
... the student riots will be followed by much that has been experienced
before. If you turn the ship round you are bound to see its wake.... The
bet on the weak was lost; now it may turn out that the bet on the strong
will also be
lost. The government will have nothing to show. Its hopes that the unrest
will subside may vanish like smoke no matter what kind of elections take
place.” (Mr. Gromoboi is referring to the elections to the Fourth Duma.)
“If the caravans of the opposition begin to move over those cliffs where
only the mists of government hovered before, if the government alienates
the moderate elements and remains in isolation, the elections will turn
into bitter defeat, and the entire system will be shaken because it is not
a system based on law.”

Menshikov accuses the bourgeoisie of “instigating” “revolution”;
the bourgeoisie accuses the Menshikovs of leading to an increase of
unrest”. “It is an old story, but ever new.”

In dealing with the same subject in the Cadet Rech the
renegade Izgoyev attempts to draw some sociological conclusions—not
realising what a rash thing it is for Cadets in general, and renegades in
particular, to undertake such a task. In an article entitled
“Juxtaposition” (in the issue of February 14), he draws a comparison
between the Congress of the United Nobility and the statement of the
sixty-six Moscow merchants. “The United Nobility,” he says, “have sunk
to the level of Purishkevich; the Moscow industrialists have begun to talk
the language of statesmen.” In the past, Mr. Izgoyev goes on to tell us,
“the nobility rendered the people great services in the cultural field”,
but “only a minority engaged in cultural activity, while the majority kept
the people down.... But such, in general, is the law of history that only
the minority of a given class acts in a progressive way.”

Very, very fine. “Such, in general, is the law of history.” This is
what the Cadet Rech says through the mouth of Mr. Izgoyev. On
closer examination, however, we discover to our amazement that the
“general laws of history” do not hold good beyond the confines of the
feudal nobility and the liberal bourgeoisie. Indeed, let us recall
Vekhi, to which the same Mr. Izgoyev contributed, and against
which the most prominent Cadets carried on a polemic, but in such a way as
to deal only with details, without touching upon fundamentals, principles,
essentials. The essential view set forth in Vekhi—one shared by
all the Cadets and expressed a thousand times by Messrs. Milyukov and
Co.—is that,
except for the reactionary nobility and the liberal bourgeoisie, each class
in Russia has revealed itself (in the first decade of the present century)
by the actions of a minority who succumbed to the “intoxication”, were
swept along by “intellectual leaders”, and are unable to rise to a
“statesmanlike” view of things. “We must have the courage to admit,”
wrote Mr. Izgoyev in Vekhi, “that the vast majority of members of
our State Dumas, with the exception of thirty or forty Cadets and
Octobrists, have not shown themselves to possess the knowledge required to
undertake the job of governing and reconstructing Russia.” Everybody will
understand that this refers to the peasant deputies, the Trudoviks, and the
workers’ deputies.

Consequently, it is “in general, the law of history” that “only the
minority of a given class acts in a progressive way”, If it is the
minority of the bourgeoisie that acts, then it is a progressive minority,
justified by the “general law of history”. “Once the minority obtains an
opportunity to act, moral prestige extends to the entire class,”
Mr. Izgoyev informs us. But if it is a minority of peasants or of workers
that acts, then this by no means corresponds to “the law of history”,
this is by no means “the progressive minority of the given class”, this
minority by no means possesses the “moral prestige” enabling it to speak
on behalf of the “entire” class—no, nothing of the kind: this is a
minority led astray by “intellectuals”, it is not, according to
Vekhi, statesmanlike, it is anti-historic, has no roots, etc.

It is a risky business for Cadets in general and for Vekhi
writers in particular to indulge in generalisations, because every attempt
they make at generalisations inevitably exposes the inherent affinity
between the arguments of the Cadets and those of Menshikov.

Rossiya and
Zemshchina[5] argue: the sixty-six merchants are a minority by
no means representing the class, they have not shown themselves to possess
either the knowledge or the ability “to govern and reconstruct Russia”;
moreover, they are not even merchants, but “intellectuals” who have been
led astray, etc., etc.

The Izgoyevs and the Milyukovs argue: the Trudoviks and the workers’
deputies in our State Dumas, for example, are minorities which by no means
represent their classes
(i. e., nine-tenths of the population); they have been led astray by
“intellectuals”, have not shown themselves to possess either the
knowledge or the ability to “govern and reconstruct Russia”, etc., etc.

How is this inherent affinity between the arguments of Rossiya
and Zemshchina, on the one hand, and those of Rech and
Russkiye Vedomosti on the other, to be accounted for? The reason
is this: despite the differences in the classes represented by these two
groups of newspapers, neither class is any longer capable of any
material, independent, creative and decisive historical action that is
progressive. Not merely the first but the second group of
newspapers, not only the reactionaries, but the liberals, too, represent a
class that is afraid of historical, independent action on the part
of other, broader, sections, groups or masses of the population, of other
numerically stronger classes.

Mr. Izgoyev, as a renegade “Marxist”, will certainly see a crying
contradiction in this: on the one hand, we recognise Russia’s capitalist
development and, consequently, its inherent tendency towards the fullest
possible and purest possible rule of the bourgeoisie both in the economic
and in the political sphere; on the other hand, we declare that the liberal
bourgeoisie is no longer capable of independent, creative
historical action!

This “contradiction” exists in real life, and is not the result of
faulty reasoning. The inevitability of bourgeois rule does not in the least
imply that the liberal bourgeoisie is capable of such displays of
historical independent activity as might free it from its “enslavement”
to the Purishkeviches. In the first place, history does not move along a
smooth and easy road, such as would imply that every historically ripe
change means ipso facto that precisely the class which stands to
profit most by it, is mature and strong enough to carry this change into
effect. Secondly, in addition to the liberal bourgeoisie, there is yet
another bourgeoisie; for instance, the entire peasantry, taken in the mass,
is nothing but the democratic bourgeoisie. Thirdly, the history of Europe
shows us that some changes, bourgeois in their social sub stance, were
accomplished by elements whose background was by no means
bourgeois. Fourthly, we see the same thing in the history of Russia during
the past half-century.

When the ideologists and leaders of the liberals begin to argue the way
the Karaulovs, the Maklakovs, the Milyukovs and the Vekhi writers
do, that means that a number of historical factors have caused the
liberal bourgeoisie to exhibit such a pronounced tendency to “beat a
retreat” and to show such dread of moving forward, that this forward
movement will pass them by, will go beyond them, in spite of their
fears. And an altercation such as mutual accusations of being responsible
for “increasing unrest” hurled by Gromoboi at Menshikov and by Menshikov
at
Gromoboi,[1]
is but a sign that this historical movement forward is beginning to be felt
by all....

“Contemporary society,” says Mr. Izgoyev in the same article, “based
on the principle of private property, is a class society, and for the time
being it cannot be anything else. Whenever one class is tottering another
class is always striving to step into its place.”

“What a clever chap,” Mr. Milyukov must think when he reads such
tirades in his Rech. It is rather pleasant to have a Cadet who was
a Social-Democrat at the age of twenty-five and by the time he reached
thirty-five had “come to his senses” and repented of his errors.

It is rash on your part, Mr. Izgoyev, to dabble in
generalisations. Contemporary society is admittedly a class society. Can
there be a party in a class society which does not represent a class? You
have probably guessed that there cannot be. Then why make such a faux
pas, why do you prate about a “class society” in the organ of a
party which prides itself on, and sees its merit in calling itself a
non-class party? (Other people who, not only in words, not merely for the
sake of journalistic prattle, recognise contemporary society as a class
society, regard such talk as hypocrisy or short-sightedness.)

When you turn your face to the United Nobility or to the liberal Moscow
merchants you shout that contemporary society is a class society. But when
you have to, when unpleasant (ah, how terribly unpleasant!) events compel
you to turn around, even if for a brief moment, to face the peasants
or the workers, you begin to rail at the narrow, lifeless, fossilised,
immoral, materialist, godless and unscientific “doctrine” of the class
struggle. You would surely do better, Mr. Izgoyev, not to tackle any
sociological generalisations! Don’t ask for trouble.

“Whenever one class is tottering another class is always striving
to step into its place.”

Not always, Mr. Izgoyev. It happens at times that the two classes, the
one that is tottering and the one that “is striving”, are both in an
advanced stage of decay—one more, the other less, of course, but both are
in an advanced stage of decay. It happens that, feeling its decay, the
class that “is striving” forward is afraid of taking a step
forward, and when it does take such a step it is sure to lose no time in
taking two steps back. It happens that the liberal bourgeoisie (as was the
case in Germany, for instance, and particularly in Prussia) is afraid to
“step into the place” of the tottering class, but exerts every
effort to “share the place” or, rather, to obtain any kind of place, even
if it be in the servants’ hall—anything rather than step
into the place of the “tottering”, anything rather than bring
matters to the point where the tottering would “fall”. Such things
happen, Mr. Izgoyev.

In historical periods when such things do happen, the liberals, if they
succeed in passing themselves off as democrats, are liable to bring (and
they do bring) the greatest harm to the entire cause of social development;
for the difference between the liberals and the democrats is precisely that
the former are afraid “to step into the place”, while the latter are
not. Both the former and the latter are engaged in accomplishing the
historically ripe bourgeois change; but the former are afraid to accomplish
it, are hindering it by their fear, while the latter, although they often
share many illusions on the results that will derive from the bourgeois
change, put all their strength and their very soul into its accomplishment.

In illustration of these general sociological reflections, I shall take
the liberty of citing one example of a liberal who does not strive, but is
afraid to “step into the place” of the tottering class, and who is,
therefore (consciously or
unconsciously, that makes no difference), most flagrantly deceiving the
population when he calls himself a “democrat”. This liberal is the
landlord A. Y. Berezovsky the First, Member of the Third Duma, a
Cadet. During the debate in the Duma on the agrarian question (in 1908) he
delivered the following speech, which was approved of by the leader of the
Party, Mr. Milyukov, who described it as “splendid”. In view of the
forthcoming elections, we make bold to think that it will not be amiss to
recall that speech.

“... It is my profound conviction,” Mr. Berezovsky said in defending
the Agrarian Bill before the State Duma on October 27, 1908, “that this
Bill is much more advantageous to the landowners, too, and I am saying
this, gentlemen, as one who knows farming, since I own land and have en
gaged in it all my life.... You must not seize upon the bare fact of
compulsory alienation, wax indignant over it and declare that it would be
an act of violence; you must examine what this proposition amounts to,
what, for instance, the Bill of the 42 members of the First State Duma
proposed. That Bill contained only the recognition of the necessity of
alienating in the first place the land that is not exploited by the owners
themselves, that is cultivated by peasants using their own implements and
animals, and, finally, land that is let out to tenants. Further, the party
of people’s freedom supported the proposal that committees be organised in
the localities, which, after working for some time, perhaps even for a
number of years, were to ascertain which land was subject to alienation,
which was not, and how much land was needed to satisfy the peasants. The
committees were to be so constituted that half their membership would have
been made up of peasants, and the other half of non-peasants; and it seems
to me that in the general actual situation which would thus have been
created in the localities, it would have been possible to ascertain
properly both how much land there was that could be alienated and how much
land was needed for the peasants; and, finally, the peasants would have
seen for themselves to what extent their just demands could be satisfied
and to what extent their desire to get a lot of land was often wrong and
unjustified. Then this material would have been referred to the Duma for
further elaboration, after which it would have been referred to
the Council of
State,[6] and, finally, it would have been submitted to the tsar for his
sanction. That,properly speaking, was the method of procedure at which, for
some unknown reason, the government took fright, dissolved the Duma, and
thus brought about the present state of affairs. This systematic work would
undoubtedly have had as its result, the satisfaction of the true needs of
the population and consequently, its pacification, and the preservation of
the efficiently run estates, which the party of people’s freedom never
intended to destroy unless there was an extreme need for this.” (Verbatim
Reports, p. 398.)

When Mr. Izgoyev, who belongs to the same party as Mr. Berezovsky,
writes in his article “Juxtaposition” that “Russia is a democratic
country and will not tolerate any oligarchy, either new or old”, we can
see quite clearly what this kind of talk really means. Russia is by no
means a democratic country, nor will she ever become one so long as fairly
large sections of the population regard a party like the Cadets as a
democratic party. This bitter truth is a thou sand times more vital to the
people than the honeyed lies dispensed by the representatives of the
half-hearted, spine less, and unprincipled liberal oligarchy, the
Cadets. The more such “altercations” as those between the Menshikovs and
the sixty-six and Gromoboi become the order of the day the more necessary
it is to remind people of this bitter truth.

Notes

[1]By the liberal merchants at the nobility and by the nobility at the
liberal merchants. —Lenin

[3]The statement made by 66 representatives of Moscow commercial and
industrial capital, was printed in Russkiye Vedomosti, No. 33,
February 11(24), 1911. While recognising the need to combat the students’
strikes, the authors of the statement also condemned the government action
on the grounds that its measures against the participants in student
disturbances jeopardised the existence of the higher school.

[4]Golos Moskvy (Voice of Moscow)—a daily newspaper,
organ of the Octobrists, the counter-revolutionary party of the big
industrial bourgeoisie and the landlords; published in Moscow from
December 1906 to June 1915.

[5]Zemshchina (Land Affairs)—a daily Black-Hundred
newspaper, published in St. Petersburg from July 1909 to February 1917;
organ of the extreme Right deputies to the State Duma.

[6]Council of State—one of the highest state bodies in tsarist
Russia. Formed in 1810, according to M. M. Speransky’s plan, as a
legislative-consultative body whose members were appointed and con firmed
by the tsar. It was a reactionary body which voted down even the most
moderate bills adopted by the State Duma.